|
|
 |
|
|
|
register |
bbs |
search |
rss |
faq |
about
|
|
|
meet up |
add to del.icio.us |
digg it
|
|
|
|
Still more on reproducible Cold Fusion experiments
(word processor parameters LM=8, RM=75, TM=2, BM=2)
Taken from KeelyNet BBS (214) 324-3501
Sponsored by Vangard Sciences
PO BOX 1031
Mesquite, TX 75150
There are ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS
on duplicating, publishing or distributing the
files on KeelyNet!
May 5, 1991
COLDFUS2.ASC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This file courteously supplied to KeelyNet by Mike Vest.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The following was taken off of the National Science Echo from
Fidonet. Someone should call Mills Technology, and see if we can
get their paper now.. Onward, Resonant Warriors... Mike Vest
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Cold Fusion Lecture - broad new theory
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Two physicists said Thursday they had developed
a theory that could explain some of the puzzling phenomena
persistently produced by disputed ``cold fusion'' experiments.
The experiments did not produce excess energy through nuclear
fusion, but instead by a new type of nuclear reaction that
scientists say could possibly harness to produce power, said
Michigan physicists Frederick Mayer and John Reitz.
The reaction may result from production of a new type of particle
dubbed a ``hydron,'' which could interract with metal to produce a
nuclear reaction at room temperature, they said.
The pair described the theory at a news conference in Boston, one
day after presenting a paper published in the Journal of Fusion
Technology at a seminar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
in Cambridge, Mass.
Lawrence Lidsky, a nuclear engineer at MIT who attended the seminar,
said the theory was interesting but needed to be confirmed by
experiments.
'`Nobody ran out of the room screaming, 'He's got it,''' Lidsky
said. ``It's interesting but the theory makes a lot of assumptions
and requires several leaps of faith.''
One of the appealing aspects of the theory, however, is that it
should be able to be tested fairly easily, he said.
``There are some nifty tests that could be done to see if the theory
is correct or not that should be fairly definitive,'' he said.
Meanwhile, Mills Technologies of Lancaster, Pa., (see COLDFUS1.ZIP
on KeelyNet) also held a news conference Thursday to claim the
``cold fusion'' results were actually from a non-nuclear reaction
Page 1
that produces energy through the contraction of hydrogen atoms.
Company president Randell Mills said Fusion Technology had agreed to
publish a paper describing his work, which would be presented at a
meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York in August.
Chemists B. Stanley Pons and Norman Fleischmann created a worldwide
uproar in 1989 when they announced that they had produced nuclear
fusion in a simple experiment at room temperature at the University
of Utah.
Scientists had thought enormous pressure and very high temperatures
would be needed to produce fusion -- the reaction that powers the
sun that researchers have been trying to harness as an energy
source.
Pons and Fleischmann's claims largely have been discredited. But
some scientists have continued to report detecting hints of a
possible nuclear reaction produced by the experiments that they
could not explain.
Pons and Fleischmann's experiment involved running electricity
through jars containing rods made of the metal palladium and a form
of water that has an extra hydrogen atom.
The pair theorized the electrical current drove deuterium atoms in
the water into the palladium until the deuterium became so tightly
packed the atoms fused -- releasing excess energy.
In the new theory, deuterium could react with metals like palladium
to form unstable neutral particles dubbed ``hydrons,'' which then
could react with the palladium in a nuclear reaction that produces
excess heat.
``What he's saying is people were looking for the wrong reaction.
It's not a form of fusion but a form of nuclear reaction,'' Lidsky
said.
``If it were true, it would explain a number of phenomena that are
puzzling,'' he said, adding: ``Can you use this to make power? Lord
knows.'' Mayer is president of Mayer Applied Research Inc. in Ann
Arbor.
Reitz is an Ann Arbor consultant who taught physics at Case Western
Reserve University from 1954 to 1965.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Cold Fusion Lecture
broad new theory Theory Suggests Cold Fusion May Be Real
by John Travis
Perhaps rewakening a controversy which stunned the world over two
years ago, a Michigan physicist yesterday at MIT presented a broad
new theory that may explain the sporadic and puzzling results of
cold fusion experiments, as well addressing other intriguing
problems such as excess planetary heat and the presence of tritium
in volcanic emissions.
Page 2
In 1989, two Utah chemists shocked the scientific community with
their announcement of room-temperature fusion-in-a-bottle.
Attempts to duplicate the experiment proved largely unsuccessful,
prompting most researchers to dimiss the original report and the few
others that followed as incorrect. Still, in the face of strong
skepticism and even disdain from the majority of physicists, a small
band of believers have continued to experiment and have reported
some unusual results.
Speaking before a small audience at a lecture sponsored by MIT's
Laboratory for Nuclear Science, Dr. Frederic J. Mayer, a plasma
physicist with his own company in Ann Arbor, MI, detailed a paper,
appearing in next month's issue of Fusion Technology, that attempts
to explain the experimental inconsistencies that have been observed
over the past 24 months.
Fusion, the process which powers the sun, has a number of
established pathways, the most common being the collison of two
hydrogen atoms which produces a helium atom and a burst of energy,
However, this new theory bypasses fusion reactions and proposes a
novel energy-producing nuclear reaction that involves a new class of
atomic particles not yet directly detected.
Mayer's paper, co-authored with theoretical physicist Dr. John R.
Reitz, suggests that the excess heat and other nuclear products
detected in various cold fusion experiments are not the result of
fusion, but instead a reaction involving an isotope switch.
Isotopes are atoms that are chemically identical, but have different
numbers of neutrons. For example, carbon has a number of isotopes.
A carbon atom may have up to twelve or more neutrons in its various
isotopic forms.
An isotope that is stripped of a neutron, or picks ups one, can
often release energy. These reactions, which Mayer calls Resonant
Direct Nuclear Reactions, may be the explanation for the cold fusion
phenomenon, according to the new theory.
There are a number of these isotope reactions, many of them occuring
in metals that have been accused of contaminating cold fusion
experiments. Since the level of contamination can vary widely, Mayer
suggests this may be one explanation for the irreproducibity of many
experiments.
"The primary nuclear actions are not the conventional d-d fusion
reactions, but are RDNRs," Mayer told the gathered audience, "The
contaminants are driving the system."
Mayer divides the RDNRs into two categories, tritium producers and
tritium consumers. Tritium is an extremely rare isotope of the
hydrogen atom which normally has a single proton.
(An isotope is one of two or more nuclides that have the same
number of protons in their nuclei.
Atomic hydrogen has one electron and one proton, the two
"normal" isotopes of hydrogen are Deuterium (mass number 2,
Page 3
also known as HEAVY WATER) and Tritium (mass number
3 and radiocative)......Vangard)
Tritium, in addition to the positively charged proton, has two extra
neutrons in the nucleus and has been accused of being another
contaminant in the experiments.
In Mayer's isotope switch, tritium is converted to deuterium,
another form of hydrogen that has a single neutron plus the proton,
or vice-versa.
When tritium is transformed into deuterium, a freed neutron is
available for a metal atom, creating two isotope switches overall.
The metal, perhaps platinum or uranium, can also lose a neutron,
allowing a deuterium atom to be converted to tritium. It is the
isotope switch in the metals that release the excess energy.
While the process appears simple and obvious, there is an obstacle
most physicists thought prevented such nuclear reactions--the
Coulomb barrier.
This barrier is similar to the repulsion that magnets can have with
each other and occurs when particles of similar charge are brought
together. The tritium, or deuterium, must be very close to the metal
atoms before they can trade neutrons.
Yet, the positive proton is repulsed by the large number of
similarly charged protons in the metal atoms and the reactions are
prevented from occuring.
But, as Mayer explains in the most controversial part of the new
theory, the proton in the the tritium or deuterium can be
neutralized, which allows the atoms to evade the Coulomb barrier and
procede with their resonant direct nuclear reactions (RDNRs).
To perform this magic, Mayer and Reitz have theorized a new class of
particles they call "hydrons" or virtual particles (the second name
is avoided since it has been used for other atomic particles as
well).
According to Mayer, a hydron is an unstable, compact neutral
particle that sometimes occurs when an electron interacts with a
proton.
In effect, the electron and proton cancel each other out, creating a
"virtual" neutron. If the proton in tritium can be neutralized in
this way, the Coulumb barrier would no longer be an impediment and
the nuclear reactions would occur.
However, these hydrons have not been directly observed and many in
the audience were unconvinced that such a proton-electron
interaction could exist. Mayer could offer only indirect evidence
for the hydrons, but pointed out they provided the best explanation
for the variety of experimental data.
"Small compact objects that are neutral appear from the data to be
present in nature," said Mayer, "A compact object like this could
solve a lot of problems."
Page 4
The absence of certain helium isotopes and gamma radiation have been
key arguments against cold fusion proponents, since the two are
typically produced in the accepted fusion pathways.
However, the new theory offers numerous routes in which no radiation
would be expected, and none of the reactions would produce helium.
This fact may help solve another, older mystery involving the Earth
itself. Only about half of the earth's interior energy, geothermal
heat, can be accounted for from measurements of helium.
Mayer suggested these new reactions may account for the extra heat,
as well as explaining why the ratio of helium isotopes is different
for geothermal gases than the ratio found in the galaxy. Jupiter,
which emits twice as much heat as can be explained presently, is
another area where hydrons may be involved.
Observations of volcanic emissions have also been found to have
large anounts of tritium, more than can be explained from the normal
fusion rate at the volcanoe's temperature. Tritium-producing RDNRs
may explain the excess, according to Mayer.
The broad scope of the theory is one the reasons it is so
attractive, said Mayer. It is not just limited to explaining cold
fusion phenomenon, but many other scientific puzzles.
In fact, the strongest evidence for the new theory may come from
other fusion experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Scientists there are studying a process known as Cluster Impact
Fusion in which they shoot deuterium atoms at titanium foil. Charged
particles measured during the experiment appear to match one of the
isotope reactions proposed by Mayer and Reitz.
Another puzzle that may back-up the new theory is the diffusivity of
hydrogen into metals. This is a well-recognized problem that
embrittles the metals.
The hydrons, in addition to being neutral, would be extremely small
and could seep into metals much more effectively than similar atoms
like oxygen or nitrogen. Since the hydrons are short-lived, they
would convert back ("go normal" in Mayer's words) taking up a larger
volume. And since the hydrons are now inside the metal, this
increase could cause cracking, a possible explanation for the
metal's brittleness.
Mayer's audience at the lecture included Peter Hagelstein, a
theoretician at MIT who had provided one of the first possible
explanations for cold fusion almost two years ago.
While intrigued with the new theory, Hagelstein was not yet
persuaded that hydrons could exist. The mathematical proof of them
would be difficult, he said.
Mayer agreed but pointed out one of the benefits of the hydron
explanation was a number of obvious experimental tests that could be
done to either support or contradict the theory. Repeating some of
the cold fusion experiments, with deliberate and controlled
contamination of the metals, would be an excellent start, according
to Mayer.
Page 5
Concluding his lecture, Mayer answered what he said was the most
obvious question -- does the theory suggest a large scale nuclear
energy source. While refusing to speculate on the actual method,
Mayer simply responded, "I think there is."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have comments or other information relating to such topics
as this paper covers, please upload to KeelyNet or send to the
Vangard Sciences address as listed on the first page.
Thank you for your consideration, interest and support.
Jerry W. Decker.........Ron Barker...........Chuck Henderson
Vangard Sciences/KeelyNet
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If we can be of service, you may contact
Jerry at (214) 324-8741 or Ron at (214) 242-9346
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 6
|
|
|
To the best of our knowledge, the text on this page may be freely reproduced and distributed.
If you have any questions about this, please check out our Copyright Policy.
totse.com certificate signatures
|
|
|
About | Advertise | Bad Ideas | Community | Contact Us | Copyright Policy | Drugs | Ego | Erotica
FAQ | Fringe | Link to totse.com | Search | Society | Submissions | Technology
|
|
|
|
|
|
